Coventry City are waiting for a medical verdict on defender Jordan Willis who lasted less than half-an-hour in his comeback match after a two-month injury lay-off.

Willis was pencilled in for a place on the bench against Peterborough this weekend with the Sky Blues short of defensive options following the news that Reda Johnson is out for the rest of the season with a torn hamstring.

That seems highly unlikely now, although manager Tony Mowbray is optimistic it will prove a temporary setback because Willis took a knock on his left knee in the Under-21 match against Barnsley on Monday rather than the right one that required surgery after he was injured at Walsall in August.

“It’s not a recurrence which is a good sign,” said Mowbray, “although any injury is a worry.

“In an ideal world he’d have come through that game strongly and we’d have been looking to get him involved at the weekend, but that’s obviously going to come too soon for him again.

“Sometimes when players have been out for a while every little knock and niggle is a worry for them so we’ll have to reassure him that everything’s fine or, if there is an issue, give him the time to get fully fit again.”

Mowbray accepts that modern-day managers are far more likely to have to contend with long-term injuries to their players than they did when he was in his prime as a tough-tackling defender.

Tony Mowbray during his playing days

“I was very lucky,” he said; “I hardly missed a match –played 40 games a season for ten years – and I was a big lad, too, so it was a heavy landing when I went down.

“I had very solid knees, went through my whole career and never had a problem there. I think that was because I had huge quads which protect your knees. And I probably got those because I was ploughing through muddy pitches, developing the strength in my legs.

“These days you’re playing on carpets every week and the game is so much faster, with a lot more twisting and turning. Jordan’s a lot quicker than I was so his muscles have to work differently and there’s more strain on them.

“We can all reminisce about the days in the 60s and 70s when the same team would turn out week after week and Liverpool would win the title using 14 men.

“Now even teams in League One have got 24-man squads and they utilise them all in the course of a season because times are different and players’ bodies are different.”